Hardest Part Lies Ahead for City’s Traffic Plan

Michael R. Bloomberg, with the help of Eliot Spitzer and other Albany leaders, has kept his congestion pricing plan alive, but in a diluted form.Credit
Liz O. Baylen for The New York Times

ALBANY, July 20 — It took four men four days and nights of stick-waving, carrot-dangling, and politician-wrangling to reach a compromise on Thursday on Mayor Michael. R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal. And that was the easy part.

During the next eight months, any final plan will still need to be approved by the United States Department of Transportation, the mayor, the governor, and majorities of the new 17-member traffic mitigation commission, the 51-member City Council, the 62-member State Senate and the 150-member State Assembly.

And none of that can happen until the Legislature gives the initial approval for the process to begin, under the agreement negotiated this week by Mr. Bloomberg, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

All of which means that the deal may not be the green light for congestion pricing that Mr. Bloomberg and some supporters have hailed it as. In practice, the legislation may merely set into motion a protracted period of debate.

“I guess they’re going to slug it out politically and substantively,” said Eric N. Gioia, a Queens councilman who says the city needs some form of traffic and pollution control.

Officials in Albany and New York are already gauging potential alliances on the new commission, for example. The governor, the mayor, Mr. Silver, and Mr. Bruno, along with Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker, will each nominate three members. Malcolm A. Smith, the Senate minority leader, and James Tedisco, the Assembly minority leader, will each nominate one.

The commission will consider Mr. Bloomberg’s original plan and then recommend a final traffic relief plan for approval. Bloomberg aides acknowledge that even if the commission recommends a pricing plan, its details are unlikely to match those of the mayor’s.

Nonetheless, they argue that the makeup of the commission, coupled with the requirement that any alternative plans reduce traffic by the same volume as Mr. Bloomberg’s, all but guarantee that the commission will vote for congestion pricing.

“Mike Bloomberg got where he is today by knowing how to count,” said John Gallagher, an administration spokesman. “Thirteen of 17 members of the commission will be appointed by leaders who endorsed congestion pricing and continue to support it.”

But that particular alignment of political stars could easily change. Many Senate Republicans strongly oppose congestion pricing. Some have held their tongues for weeks out of deference to Mr. Bruno and loyalty to the mayor, who has been a major donor to Senate Republicans. But they are less likely to stay quiet during the months ahead.

“The timing allows us an opportunity for some breathing room. And I think it’s clear that we could have some alternatives,” said Senator John J. Flanagan, a Suffolk County Republican. The Assembly, for its part, is unlikely to approve a plan if it believes that the commission is rubber-stamping the mayor’s vision. Indeed, Mr. Silver has already made clear that he sees Thursday’s deal as little more than an agreement for further negotiation.

Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester County assemblyman and a critic of the mayor’s plan, said he and his colleagues intended to use the coming months to explore issues that he said the mayor’s aides had been reluctant to address with the Legislature.

“They finally get a mechanism to answer the questions, and their answer is, ‘We control the votes,’ ” Mr. Brodsky said of the administration. “Which is nonsense. This is going to be idea- and information-driven.”

It is also uncertain what financing, if any, will yet be provided by federal officials. Mr. Bloomberg had previously insisted that Monday, July 16, was the deadline for the Legislature to approve a congestion plan and become one of nine finalists for a program that could give the city as much as $500 million in aid. But Thursday’s deal appeared to support assertions by Assembly Democrats that the deadline was flexible.

Mr. Bloomberg has cautioned, however, that federal officials could still decline to help finance the city’s congestion plan, especially if the Legislature does not quickly approve the creation of the commission.

Even should federal financing be forthcoming, however, the ambitious plan that Mr. Bloomberg hoped would be approved in June will now come to a vote sometime next winter, meaning that the city could move ahead with buying equipment for a system that is ultimately rejected by the Council or the Legislature.

The timetable, which calls for a decision well into Mr. Bloomberg’s second and final term, could also collide with his national plans. A presidential bid could help preserve the mayor’s political leverage in what would otherwise be a lame-duck period. If he declines to run for president, however, Mr. Bloomberg may find himself with a lower political profile and less ability to sway other elected officials, despite his ability to spread money around.

Indeed, Mr. Bloomberg had initially pressed for his plan to be approved without the City Council, a move that his aides had hoped would both hasten adoption and offer political cover to Council members whose constituents opposed congestion pricing. But now the Council will be required to vote on any congestion plan, complicating the outlook.

“I think that it’s incumbent on the mayor to really go out there and win this on the merits to sell the policy and show it will really work,” Mr. Gioia said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Hardest Part Lies Ahead for City’s Traffic Plan. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe